The Ikea Charm
by hakon2feb
Summary: Ron and Hermione are ready to move in together. Having bought an empty house, they have to go shopping for furniture. Harry, a pregnant Ginny and Luna are dragged along to the furniture store Ikea. Hilarirty ensues.


This little one-shot came to me, and I don't think I have seen the concept before. Hopefully it's worth a few laughs.

This is an AU a few years after the final battle in Deathly Hallows, but well before the epilogue. The only thing I can say for sure about what year it is, is that it's before Ginny gives birth to her first son. Possibly early 2004(That's what wiki says anyways), with Ginny showing signs of being pregnant.

J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter canon, and Ikea is a furniture store common in Scandinavia, but has stores in 38 countries as of 2010. I'm not sure if it's blasphemy, but I'd rather own Ikea than Harry Potter. Sadly, I don't own either. :(

The Ikea Charm.

Ronald Weasley was tired. He fancied himself in decent shape after finishing Auror academy and being an active duty Auror for two years. He might have been in slightly better shape during the battle for Hogwarts, but that was six years ago, and the more peaceful times had allowed him to put on a few extra pounds.

Hermione had a years left of university, studying law at oxford, but the two had agreed to move in together, which was the reason why Ron was so tired. Hermione had dragged him, Harry, Ginny, and for some reason, Luna with her to buy furniture for their house northwest of Norton. Ron had naturally grumbled about it being too open for quidditch, but they had compromised by having Bill add some strong muggle repelling and obscuring wards, which made the situation better.

Wanting to integrate her fiancé more in the muggle world, Hermione had naturally wanted to buy the furniture at a store instead of transfigurating or conjuring it. She reasoned that the muggle world had a far larger selection of furniture, and that she refused to live in the middle ages. Ron had caved once he had seen a brochure with different bed models, after Hermione had explained the prices in wizard currency.

Hermione had dragged Ron along, who had frantically grabbed Harry's hand on the way out the door. The six month pregnant Ginny had valiantly followed, either trying to free her husband or just being curious about the furniture store. Somehow, Luna had also come along. She said she and her father had seen the store in multiple locations in Sweden and Norway when they were on the lookout for the elusive crumple-horned snorkack. She had never been inside one, mostly because they didn't think the snorkack would live in so close proximity to muggles.

This was how an eager law student, a resigned Auror, an Auror trying franticly to disengage from the resigned Auror's hand, a hormonally imbalanced, six months pregnant quidditch chaser and a blonde news reporter entered the Ikea store located in Warrington.

As they walked into the store, the two Weasleys were surprised by the automatic rotating door at the entrance. Harry and Hermione had seen it multiple times, so they didn't think much of it, being raised by muggles, this was nothing out of the ordinary. Luna went a few extra rounds, trying to determine how it worked by using it. She had her notepad out and was writing down different theories ranging from house elf magic to localised magnets.

After passing the revolving door, four of the five were surprised when they passed through a weak ward. They all jumped when a small sign rose from the ground as if by magic. On the sign was written:

 **All Ikea furniture has been lightly enchanted in order to prevent copyright infringements through magical duplication. Unfortunately, this has led to several accidents when trying to transport the furniture through magical means. For your own safety, Apparition, portkey and floo should be avoided while transporting any products bought in Ikea. For those not owning muggle transportation, Ikea is renting out brooms by the checkout. Have a pleasant shopping trip.**

Underneath were moving images showing what might happen with the furniture after attempted magical travel. For Apparition, the person's arms had been replaced by table legs, and the person's head was stuck to the underside of said table that sported two arms instead of legs. For portkey, it looked like a piano had been dropped from a great height and simply been smashed to pieces due to the impact of the hard ground. A person exited the floo suddenly jumped as the shrunken bag in his pocket caught fire.

Even Hermione looked a bit green after that, but reasoned that since she disliked flying so much, she would apparate ahead and wait for the others to fly over since it wasn't that far from their house.

Thus, they all walked inside and looked around excitedly. They were generally in awe at how much different furniture was at display, as well as the many different styles and materials used. Ron liked the traditional oak furniture, while Hermione was more inclined towards more modern metal and plastic furniture. The tree purebloods were surprised by the texture of plastic, since the magical world had no equivalent to it.

As they continued walking, Luna was happily humming while drawing a large map in her notepad, using the yellow arrows on the floor as directions. She would have to thank Hermione for showing her how the pen worked. To think that muggles had solved the problem with the self-inking quill! Not to mention that the grip was nice and soft, while still having enough traction that it wouldn't slip from her fingers. The muggles were truly amazing. The other four were unsure if the map Luna was drawing was a treasure map, or just to make sure she would find the way back out later.

Walking through the large store and picking out furniture took most of the morning, and it wasn't until two that Hermione was able to run to the Apparition point and disappear. The other four had to rent brooms, and they were thankful that they could hang the shrunk plastic bags onto the broom shafts without much difficulty. Flying low as to reduce the chance of being seen, it took barely twenty minutes before they arrived at the house, where Hermione had prepared tea and a light meal for everyone.

Luna had originally been sad to not have found any crumple-horned snorkacks in the Ikea shop, but had perked up when they found the stuffed toy department. She had fallen in love with a small pink unicorn that she swiftly charmed to walk around as if grazing inside the house. She was surprised when the small note said it was made of flame retardant materials, and argued for ten minutes with Hermione about a unicorns' natural magic being enough to deflect most flames except fiendfyre. Neither won the argument, but both were smiling when Harry called for everyone to pick an item to set up.

Ron, having some experience with setting up stuff thanks to their horcrux hunt, quickly pointed his wand towards an unassembled oak table. Before he knew what happened, the four table legs had impaled the top while Ron just looked at his wand with wide eyes.

Hermione, always one for logic, suggested that they read the assembly manual first. In large flashy letters, probably meant for magical people, it said that most assembly spells would either work poorly or not at all on the furniture, since the fastening mechanisms were more advanced than the simple charms could comprehend. Hovering charms and sticking charms would work, but nothing more complicated than that, and the sticking charms would even wear off since the furniture had been enchanted to only hold together if it was assembled properly. However, due to warranty issues, the Reparo charm would not work on furniture that was successfully assembled. Luna suggested that Ikea had imbued all the furniture with capitalism runes, which looked like dollar signs.

After fixing Ron's horrible first attempt, the five moved more carefully as they followed the instructions for the different furniture. This lead to several curses being shouted loudly when pieces wouldn't fit properly. Which again lead to the women smacking the boys on the back of their heads. Something that made the boys curse under their breaths instead.

Luna, being a Ravenclaw, had taken two wooden bookshelves and somehow managed to turn them into a strange pyramid. She valiantly defended that if it was good enough for a pharaoh, then it should be good enough for Ron and Hermione. The others just blinked, trying to figure out how she had managed the amazing feat, and still have some unused screws left. Seeing this, Luna quickly put them into a small pocket on her yellow sundress, smiling mysteriously without commenting.

What took the longest was naturally the king sized bed, as it was the largest single piece of furniture, even if Luna's bookshelf pyramid looked more complex. After the first failed attempt, they had all discarded magic completely, meaning that they were all lifting heavy wooden beams that would support the large mattress. Ginny had to sit that one out, seeing as Harry wouldn't allow her to do any heavy lifting if he could help it. Due to being pregnant, Ginny didn't take that well, but they managed to distract her with biscuits and the pink unicorn Luna had charmed.

After finally finishing the last bookshelf (Hermione really liked books!), they all crawled over to the living room, silently thankful that the couches were preassembled. Hermione showed Ron the receipts, and he was amazed that they had spent a lot less than he expected. The idea of saving money warred against having to actually assemble more furniture in the future, but in the end he proclaimed that it had been easier than he expected, once he understood that some screws used a different size hex wrench than others. This earned him a kiss from Hermione, who was not against rewarding her fiancé if it meant that he wouldn't outright dismiss the muggle world.

With all the furniture finally assembled, Hermione suggested that they hire someone to fix the electricity, kitchen island and bathroom. That meant they would have to go back to pick out counter tops, tiles for the bathroom and lamps for all the rooms. Ron was very agreeable after a short snog session, which had Luna giggling.

It was rapidly getting late, and the guests were soon shuffling out, all promising to help them pick out stuff for the kitchen, bathroom and anywhere else. Luna gave the couple a knowing look and a mysterious 'don't do anything I wouldn't do' before she too left.

Ron and Hermione soon retired to the bedroom, Ron again testing the springs on the king sized bed before grinning happily to his fiancé. The bed would soon have its first of many practice sessions, even if it would be almost two years until all the practice would pay off. Ron and Hermione were happy.

And there you have it.

It's been ages since I published anything on this page. Lack of inspiration and some family trouble got me down for a while, but I think this is the first step towards overcoming it.

I do have a few chapters of different stories hanging around on my computer. All somewhat darker in nature. My original plan was to finish writing before I started to post them, but posting and getting feedback might help me find the motivation to continue faster. I'm undecided for now, but we'll see what happens.


End file.
